Carts selected for sanitation pilot program

The Augusta City Council awarded the bids for the 95-gallon sanitation carts to Toter Inc.

Kent Bush

The Augusta City Council awarded the bids for the 95-gallon sanitation carts to Toter Inc.

Toter’s bid was not the lowest (About $49,54 each compared to $46.45 each) but when some non-essential additions were removed, it was competitive with the low bid. The Toter carts also withstood the punishment handed out by the street and sanitation workers better than other company’s carts.

Anthony Craft said he and some other city workers tested the carts’ durability by hitting them with baseball bats, smashing them flat, and even running over them with cars. He said they also tested them in the wind to see how sturdy they were when they were empty and with some trash inside.

In almost every way, the rotational-molder Toter carts outperformed the other carts.

“These carts seemed to be designed with durability in mind,” said Josh Shaw, Assistant to the City Manager. “They held up better in our testing and we expect them to hold up better over the life of the carts.”

The city will be ordering about 700 of these carts for the pilot program. Shaw told the council that it will take about 3,500 of the trash carts and another 3,500 recycling carts to fully equip the entire city when the pilot program is complete.